Preached at First Congregational United Church of Christ (Moorhead, Minnesota). Texts: Genesis 9:8-16 and Mark 12:28-31

In September 2001, I completed a move from Great Falls, Montana to Moorhead here, and started schooling down the street at Concordia College. The first couple days of classes were the usual overwhelm you can imagine—a new school, new place, new friends, and new studies. But then on September 11^th, the rest of the world and I sat in bewilderment as we tried to make sense of terrorist attacks that would change world history. The next Sunday, I went looking for a church that would help me make sense of what was going on. That cool September morning, walking north from Concordia, I was heading to St. John the Divine Episcopal Church north of here. But as usual I was running behind, and would be late for that service. Walking past on the sidewalk, I noticed that worship here was also at 10am. I’d be on time here, and I could always go to that other church the following Sunday. So I looked up the stone steps, heard chatting and a friendly invitation, then entered through the open front door. In all the years since, I have never made it to St. John the Divine.

This community impressed me immediately with your hospitality, patience and inclusion. That first Sunday, Pastor Shawnthea Monroe led worship that addressed the bewildering moment with compassion, named God’s holy heartbreak, and prayed for Jews and Muslims being killed in reprisal attacks. I told her in conversation afterward that I was a new religion student at Concordia, that I was gay, and that I wanted to be a pastor. By Wednesday she had taken me to coffee at the campus student union—she knew how to reel in a fish that wanted to be caught! As I started attending worship regularly and getting to know more people here, I accepted an invitation to join a newly formed Open and Affirming Task Force, exploring with Marilyn White, Chelle Lyons Hanson, and others how the church might expressly welcome LGBTQ people into the community. That task force worked for several years: considering biblical interpretations, listening to LGBTQ people talk about our lives, hopes and identities, addressing concerns and holding with care those who disagreed, then drafting the statement that was passed by the congregation twenty years ago. I don’t remember a great deal about the vote in the spring of my senior year. We worked with such deliberate care across the years that in the end the vote felt like a formality, confirming how the church had already lived itself into being.

We started something good with that declaration of Open and Affirming. The congregation has since welcomed a great many LGBTQ people, and has consistently affirmed me throughout seminary, ordination, and the past fifteen years of ministry. But there was an open and affirming “past” before that church discernment process. We did the work of the task force and declaration in faithfulness to God, and the divine statement of universal welcoming care from the very beginning. It is God who—from the first chapters of the first book of the Bible—
declares hospitality, care, and flourishing instead of evil. It is God who in the aftermath of the Great Flood promises rainbow protection and shelter, an everlasting covenant of care amid every stormy torment. It is God who conscripts the faithful—from the beginning, in the time of Jesus, and in this very moment—to the Great Commandment of love for God, neighbor, creation and self.

So what do the love commandment, and God’s everlasting covenant, call us to now? Over the last several years, I’ve noticed with mounting dread the ways that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and especially trans people are being targeted and excluded from public life. Books that depict the reality of our lives are now judged too controversial for schools, laws enforcing gender binaries exclude trans people from living in God-given identity, and anti-queer hostility has achieved the highest offices in the land. Marriage equality could be reversed by the Supreme Court, and the targeting of our trans siblings for political gain is having deadly impact. The Trevor Project, which runs a national hotline for youth and young adults at risk of self-harm, reports that in the 24 hours after the last presidential election, calls to their suicide prevention hotline went up 700%. The future of Open and Affirming is life-saving work for current and coming generations. God calls us in the years ahead to protect what currently exists for LGBTQ equality, to enact God’s welcome not only in this congregation but throughout society, and to enter the realm of public policy where needed to show love for our neighbors.

After fifteen years of leading churches in the United Church of Christ, God has called me to do something new to meet this moment. Four and a half months ago, using my experiences as a pastor and a community organizer, I launched a new multifaith, multiracial, and Minnesota-wide organizing effort for LGBTQ equality. I’ve called it Prism, naming it after that little triangular object that makes visible the rainbow spectrum always present—though hidden—everywhere there’s daylight. Prism organizing, likewise, seeks to make visible the rainbow communities that are already present everywhere in Minnesota. We are already in every faith, place, race, speaking every language, and from every community. Prism organizing seeks to show that in more powerful and effective ways.

Prism is faith-conscious, multiracial in design from the start, and finding early success in gathering and lifting up more voices advocating for our full inclusion. In the early weeks of the legislature, Minnesota faith leaders within Prism testified against bills that would have banned trans athletes from participating in youth sports,
and that would have forced trans inmates into much more dangerous prison housing. We’ve been at queer Muslim iftars and monthly organizing meetings in a synagogue. We’ve had LGBTQ community conversations in the Twin Cities suburbs and Duluth; we’ve also got them scheduled in Winona, Mankato, Cottage Grove, Northfield, and Rochester, with more to be announced soon. Because everywhere the light shines, there’s a rainbow community ready to organize, develop leaders, and build power for the thriving of LGBTQ people everywhere.  

What will be possible if ONA communities like this church, and movements like Prism, continue to follow a divine calling to protect the full inclusion of all God’s beloveds? I see a future where thousands of LGBTQ people across Minnesota and beyond recognize each other as protected within God’s great covenant,
and who experience the sincere Christian commitment of love for every neighbor. Our faith calls us to help advance pro-LGBTQ policies at the school board, city, county and state levels, and to stop the efforts of those opposed to our equality. People of faith—many faiths—will set the tone that in Minnesota at least, the faithful position is by default advocating for LGBTQ equality, no exceptions. Because of our commitment to neighbor-love, we will work for ever-expanding inclusive justice, creating a better community for everyone, regardless of race, place, faith, money, sexuality or gender identity. Together we will build a multiracial, multifaith arc of protection to care for and extend God’s sheltering, embracing covenant love.

If the ONA Past was about declaring God’s rainbow people welcome in the building and community, the church’s ONA Future requires us to proclaim and enact such welcoming and protective love throughout society. On this first day of Pride month, I invite you to share a particular welcome to LGBTQ people in your life and community, save the date for Fargo-Moorhead Pride from August 3-10^th, volunteer and welcome people at those events if you can, and watch for the invitation to a Prism community conversation later in August. These are just some of the ways we’ll continue living in faithfulness to God, in continuing the Open and Affirming legacy we celebrate this month, and in creating a future where our children’s children (and everyone else) will know and show the depth of God’s rainbow, protective love. Let us be about this good work, in faithfulness, love, compassion and pride. Thanks be to God! Amen.